I thought the Guardian’s Word of Mouth was a tad harsh with Eat & Two Veg this morning:

Restaurants are often given a bad name. Quite literally in the case of Marylebone’s vegetarian Eat and Two Veg. With a name to make even a provincial barber groan, ETV (I refuse to type it again) rather undermines the meat-free diner’s attempts at contemporary style. It would seem good food does not equal good taste.

I’d rather eat under a bad pun than the name of a celebrity chef for example, but if the food is great (and it really is good here) should the name of the place really matter? Eat & Two Veg seem to revel in the bad punning, but that hasn’t put some of our users off:

“As an unreconstructed carnivore I was initially sceptical (especially with the pun-laden menu), but when you get down to it, the food here is darn tasty,” says qwghlm while GreenHippo suggests we try “the Crispy Aromatic Luck and the Schnitzel - my two favourite dishes on the menu”.

The Rock & Sole Plaice also seems to do well…

So good food wins out over bad punning, but that being said I did spot that Thaitanic in N8 hasn’t had any reviews yet…

Photo credit: 060422 by lamentables (CC licence) showing The Vinyl Resting Place (now sadly online only)

I know the new year is all about getting healthy, but you can take things a little too far. Continuing our look at slightly odd ideas from the rest of the world I present The Clinic in Singapore via io9.com:

Created as a tribute to pop artist Damien Hirst, it features waiters dressed in white coats and scrubs serving colorful pills and syringes of cocktails with names like “Nitro-Sangria” and “Sex on a Drip” to wheel-chair ridden customers. The rooms are shaped like pills, and the plates are surgical pans shaped like kidneys.

Between this and the chocostrawbs I still prefer the giant elk, but I’ll keep scouring the Internet for more stuff that probably won’t open next to Starbucks anytime soon.

Oh and while we’re on the subject of weirdness, those of you with a strong stomach (stonger than mine) will want to check out The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World. Lutefisk washed down with a glass or two of baby mice wine, anyone? Anyone?

No, I thought not.

Photo credit: Nurse by dejahthoris (CC licence)

One of London’s most interesting events in its calendar is this Sunday: The Annual Russian Winter Festival.

Trafalgar Square will be filled with Russian themed activities and events, but of particular interest is a chance to try some Russian cuisine:
warming blinis (Russian pancakes) and pirozhkis (Russian pies), borsch (beetroot soup) and shashlik (Russian kebabs), all the more enticing in the romantic crisp wintery air, deepened with the incense of burning orthodox church candles. Whilst not too crowded, visiting children will be treated to the delights of Russian street games and puppet theatre, wandering street entertainers and musicians. Festival goers will shop for unique Russian trinkets and souvenirs and learn how to plan their once in a lifetime trip to the homeland of their hosts. Once the numbers grow and the atmosphere becomes more festive yet, genuine Russian beer will flow from the pumps and tea urns will steam to the festival beat.
I loves me some borsch. I’m actually hoping the weather is freezing this weekend just so I can enjoy the hot food more. I’ll be taking a camera or two with me too. Hope to see you there.

Photo credit: Hey, are you girls sisters? by Ben Cumming (CC licence)

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t over indulge a little this Christmas and New Year, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be jotting down a list of resolutions only to break them the first time I stroll back into The George. But as surely as night follows day the festive season tends to stumble straight into its polar opposite: the January detox.

It’s a hot topic right now and ViewLondon have thrown together some detox menus while our favourite non-alcoholic tipple has a dedicated detox smoothie this month:

Early reports suggest that there will be more people on the planet in 2008, more TV on the TV, more toast burnt and more shoes on more feet. Obviously, we can’t guarantee the accuracy of these statements; all we can do is make more smoothies

I’ve always been a big fan of the Innocent blog. It’s so damn quirky.

But me, detox? Probably not going to happen. Hangover remedies will certainly come in handy though.

Of course if you get along to the stalls in organic alley at Borough Market you have the best of both worlds - fresh juice and hangover cures galore followed by a shot or two of wheatgrass (the only non alcoholic shot that requires a whisky face).

If you really want to turn your 2008 health kick into a health brawl then you’ll want to start frequenting places like the Juice Bar, Alara, Smooth Juice Ltd, Antimony Balance, and Earth Natural Foods. Then there’s always the Energy Clinic.

Good luck! I’ll be in the Crobar.

Photo fact: Each shot of wheatgrass at Total Organics at Borough Market is equivalent to an entire week’s worth of fruit & veg!

I like to keep the blog ticking over with the latest bouts of craziness from around the world (remember the giant elk from Sweden?) so was pleased when I spotted this post over on Tokyo Mango describing strawberries that taste like chocolate:

composites of chocolate and berries created by an infusion technology, adapted for produce by a company called FCOM by freeze-drying the fruit, removing water components, and then sinking chocolate in between its fibers

Yum… even more appetizing is the news that the process is more commonly used in “industrial manufacturing for fusing metals”. Double yum!

Can’t see them being served at Wimbledon anytime soon, but it has reminded me to try a strawberry sandwich as pictured above (photo taken in Tokyo, where else?). Maybe I can short cut the process by adding some Nutella…

Well we love local networking. It is, after all, what we’re all about. So we were pleased to see it mentioned as a topic in this BBC article about what to expect over the next 12 months:
Facebook is still big but trend watchers expect the social networking phenomenon to diversify next year, with the rise of smaller, “local” sites for a single neighbourhood, street or building.

While Facebook is good for catching up with friends and exchanging virtual beers, local networking sites could actually turn out to be a lot more useful.
We of course use Facebook ourselves (here’s the TrustedPlace fan page feel free to join) but we’re happy that people realise that it’s not the be-all and end-all of what social networking can do.

Personalisation on the web has never been stronger or more important. Facebook is great at keeping you in touch with people you already know, but other great services like Flickr and Last.FM help you connect in a different way. People that you may have never met and may never meet can still become friends through a shared appreciation of photography, places, music and just about any other interest that strikes a chord. We’re proud that TrustedPlaces fills a similar role when it comes to relevant recommendations for places that form an important part of people’s social lives.

We already cover a wide area of local places of course, but in 2008 we’re going to be looking at enabling more local experts. After all, London is filled with side streets and tucked away roads that are easy to miss unless you know the area well. So while the whole team loves covering new places, reviews by people who know their areas inside and out are especially useful.

If you’ve already added a couple of reviews on an area you know quite well then keep it up and we’ll automatically highlight you as an expert. That way when a reader comes to a place like Covent Garden he or she will know exactly who is an authority on the local haunts

Photo credit: One of our own pics showing everyone sharing a drink after our Borough Market Gastro tour , on the 15th of June 2007, which inspired at least one of the attendees to organise his own.

Did Mr Pink’s anti-tipping rant in Reservoir Dogs have such an effect on gratuity culture that restaurants and cafes now have to use stealth tactics to get their 12%? The BBC seem to think so according to this report (video link).
Different restaurants have different policies. Some include service, others don’t, but they should tell you exactly what you’re paying for.
Is a note at the bottom of the menu enough? The bill itself should list exactly what you’re paying for, no? The Good Food Guide agrees that this is a “dodgy” way to add on a charge for what could possibly have been bad service.

I actually prefer places that have no mention of a tip at all as I always leave one as a matter of course, unless the service has been particularly lousy. Great service gets a great tip. This isn’t rocket science.

A place that adds a charge without me realising it is going to get a) a crappy review when I realise what they did and b) no more of my business

Or are we missing something? This is exactly the kind of issue that can cause bad reviews on TrustedPlaces. It’s especially important for restaurateurs and cafe owners to get this right because losing a single customer these days can have a severe knock-on effect now that ‘word of mouth’ and a trusted review are so important.

Photo credit: Se lo penso in lire mi metto a piangere by fabbio under a CC license

Right… that’s Christmas and New Year out of the way. So what has 2008 got in store for us then? Giant Frankenstein inspired monster birds by the look of things:

A Devon farm has concocted a 12-bird roast that takes 10 hours to cook and can feed up to 125 people.

The roast weighs 25kg (55lb) and is believed to be one of the biggest multibird meals in the country.

Anne Petch, of Heal Farm in Kings Nympton, said they wanted to make a dish with a “wow factor”.

Well… erm… wow. Costing £665 and needing two people to even lift the thing, the monster is made up of turkey, goose, chicken, pheasant, three ducks, poussin, guinea fowl, partridge, pigeon squab and quail. That’s a lot of plucking food.

Too much? Just because it’s possible to create such a beast… should we?

Supermarkets have been selling smaller ‘multibirds’ for a while so there must be a demand. It still seems somehow wrong… especially once you start scaling things up to this size with even bigger patchwork meals on the horizon. For one thing does the thing come with multiple legs? Like some kind of Lovecraftian inspired spider foul. Is there a veggie version? Quorn wrapped in tofu stuffed with spuds and carrots perhaps.

Linda McCartney would most certainly not approve.

Photo credit: Giant Cock by Skuds under a CC licence

The Guardian just published a list of the Top 10 Cosy Pubs.

Great I thought… blog fodder. Then I checked out the list: Sussex, Kent, Somerset, Devon, Wales, Suffolk, Oxfordshire, Cumbria, Yorkshire and Durham.

I’m guessing that as the point of the article was to find the pubs with the aid of a sat nav system that London was ruled out. The tom-tom would have just repeated “Walk, get the tube, catch a bus…”

I know London pubs (especially popular London pubs like The George can get a bit too cosy) but there must be a couple of snugs you like to settle into on a December evening within the M25.

Any thoughts? Here are some of other TrustedPlacers favourite pubs to get the ball rolling:

The Porterhouse : beautiful interrior design and one of the longest Beer menus I have ever seen! For a central London bar, everything is reasonably priced… Cheers, Jimbo!

Chandos: Great little place to go for cheap pints in central… says Lena Louise.

Charles Lamb: an airy, charming interior, friendly bar staff, even the dog didn’t bother me (and I can’t stand dogs!) reveals Linda Hartley.

The Waterway: A nice outdoor terrace by the water, friendly staff and music tuned up low, so you can actually have a conversation… reckons Jehona Gjurgjeala.

The Anchor & Hope: Fantastic place. What a gastropub should be. A great restaurant with a menu with a difference. Many unusual dishes are served… says Venetian.

I was looking around the main site for some out of the way places for New Year when I remembered this review by one of our newer TrustedPlacers, Kalli:

Usually known as Hamborgarabúllan, or Búllan for short, Hamborgarabúlla Tómasar is indeed not just a burger joint. No, it is THE burger joint to go to…

Great. Just one small catch. It’s in Iceland.

But isn’t that in itself pretty cool? We love when reviews start coming in from far flung places so I’d like to congratulate Kalli on what I think is our first Icelandic review.

It’s one of the few Nordic countries I’ve yet to visit, but I’m hoping that will change in 2008 (and that Kalli can point me in the direction of the beer).

Now to get back to looking for somewhere a little closer to home as Hamborgarabúlla Tómasar is a little beyond the reach of my Oyster card.

Photo credit: I ate Bambi by Karl Gunnarsson (CC licenced).